As we have triumphed, so we may be merciful; as we are strong, so we can afford to be generous.

When you borrow money from another country for the sacred purpose of national rehabilitation, it is wrong to squander it upon indulgences.

My hope is that the generous instincts of unity will not depart from us...[so that we] become the prey of the little folk who exist in every country and who frolic alongside the Juggernaut car of war to see what fun or notoriety they can extract from the proceedings.

The story of the human race is war. Except for brief and precarious interludes, there has never been peace in the world; and before history began, murderous strife was universal and unending.

Battles are the principal milestones in secular history. Modern opinion resents this uninspiring truth, and historians often treat the decisions of the field as incidents in the dramas of politics and diplomacy.

This truth may be unfashionable, unpalatable, no doubt unpopular, but, if it is the truth, the story of mankind shows that war was universal and unceasing for millions of years before armaments were invented or armies organized. Indeed, the lucid intervals of peace and order only occurred in human history after armaments in the hands of strong governments have come into being, and civilization in every age has been nursed only in cradles guarded by superior weapons and superior discipline.